When Regular Show first aired in 2010 on Cartoon Network, it was hard to imagine it would become the pop culture staple it is. Two hundred and forty-four episodes later, across eight seasons, the series finally came to an end in 2017 with a fitting conclusion that didn't invite any continuation of the story.
That never kept fans from wanting more of Mordecai and Rigby's insane adventures. Jump to 2026, and more Regular Show stories have arrived in the form of The Lost Tapes. The conceit follows Sam Marin's Pops in the afterlife, revisiting memories to avoid forgetting them, resulting in a season full of unpredictable stories across the show's varied timeline.
To talk about why this interation was the perfect way to revive the show, at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) 2026, The Direct spoke with Regular Show: The Lost Tapes stars Sam Marin (Pops) and Williamb Salyers (Rigby), alongside creatives JG Quintel (creator), Sean Szeles (executive producer), and Matt Price (head writer).
Fans of Regular Show: The Lost Tapes may also be interested in Adventure Time: Fiona and Cake, a series that is hopefully on its way to getting a third season.
Why Regular Show: The Lost Tapes Is the Perfect Continuation
"We Didn't Want to Ruin It..."
- The Direct: "Why was this the perfect time to revisit this world and take this, you know, not the normal avenue of like, all right, we're gonna do like a five-season sequel series or even a spin-off for another character. No, we're gonna do what we did here."
JG Quintel: I think we've talked about this a few times today about how if we would have been asked to do more at the end of the original run, we wouldn't have been able to do it. I mean, we were coming off of 260 episodes and a movie and lots of shorts, and it was just like we were tapped. And we also crafted the ending to wrap it up properly so that it actually ended, and we figured out a satisfying way that we were really proud of. So we didn't want to ruin it, and it felt like we had closure on that.
But then, you know, nine years later, getting asked about potentially doing more, like Sean and I had a bunch of meetings talking to each other. Would we want to do it? Could we? Like, is there a way to not mess it up? And like, we thought a lot about it.
Sean Szeles: We didn't want to just do a continuation of them as adults or something, or, [I've] said this before, [we] didn't want to like focus on Mordecai and Rigby's kids, you know? Like their adventures or something. We really tried to figure out a way to just do more of the show that everyone loves, and what made the show work and made the show funny, like Mordecai and Rigby being in their 20s and goofing off, struggling at their job, as the core, and then with this cast of characters around them.
And so we decided to continue the story with Pops. Because we didn't want to erase all that, like Pops in the afterlife, you know, revisiting his memories as if we're revisiting the show. We thought that worked perfectly, and we were able to make episodes that can dip any place into the timeline of the original run, which is cool.
Are the Regular Show Creatives Down for a Proper Continuation Series?
Could Regular Show Get a Real Continuation?
- The Direct: "Is an actual continuation show still off the table [or is that] not something you guys want to do as of now in this moment?"
Matt Price: We all thought everything was off the table, right? Like we would never do anything again. And so here we are. We've done the season, and we've delved into Pops' afterlife, and it's really satisfying. So is it off the table? I could never say it's off the table, but it's not up to me.
JG Quintel: It's one of those things where, when they asked us about what we're doing now, and we're like, there was hesitation, but if you find an idea that you're excited about and that you're like, I want to do that, because that's how we've always made the show from the beginning. It's like, we want to see this. We think this is super funny. We like it. We're making each other laugh coming to work. If we found a situation in the story that made that happen, we'd probably be into it. But you know, we wouldn't force it. It wouldn't be like, oh, the network said they're going to greenlight like 80 episodes. We'd be like, but what is it going to be?
Jumping Around Regular Show's Timeline
These New Adventures Are From Multiple Points on the Timeline
- The Direct: "What are the challenges you faced going back into these characters, knowing that these little adventures were all over the place [and were] going to be at different points in the timeline?"
William Salyers: We've got amazing storyboard artists, who are pretty much our writers, and they kind of take care of that for us. As far as getting back into Rigby, you know, I did him from 2010 to 2016, which was when I actually actively recorded him, and so it wasn't really that hard to get back into it. You know, I only have one voice to worry about.
Sam Marin: Yeah, I'd say the same. As far as having a jump around, there are clues or things to like how the character would be in that story, like if Muscle Man is more of a bully, to Mordecai and Rigby. The episodes work so well as standalone episodes that I don't think you have to worry too much about a lot. You can kind of just read that episode, and yeah, it kind of takes care of itself.
- The Direct: "Was it ever challenging to keep track of where these characters might have been in any moment, or did it not really matter because they were just random moments and you didn't even really need to know where the show was happening at previous points?"
Sean Szeles: Oh, I think it was really challenging because we did want them to land in specific moments. I mean, not like to the day or something, but like I think it was important to us to like, yeah, thread the needle of the timeline, and or at least have a vague notion of where people were in their interpersonal relationships, you know, and I think we did it for the most part successfully.
Matt Price: Unlike the past in the original series, this was the first time we really spent a decent amount of time in the room, being like, okay, so this would be a Season 2 episode. We just never did that before, so that was a fun challenge, like figuring out what piece of the puzzle it was and all that.
JG Quintel: And getting to kind of work within an arc, because normally all of our episodes are just standalone, but this has a little bit of an arc baked in as well. So being able to like have to focus on how they play from one to another while also having just standalones, was a fun challenge.
The full video interviews are available below:
